Marcus Morris is OK with trip to D-League

LOS ANGELES — When Marcus Morris was still locked out of his rookie season, he had no interest in further postponing his NBA career with a stint in the NBA Development League.

Rockets rookies typically serve an apprenticeship with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Morris, however, did not think it would be for him.

“The D-League is not the NBA,” Morris said in the days before training camp opened. “I’m a guy that learns watching or getting a chance out there. I’m older. I think I’m ready to contribute right away.”

He might have been, but with Patrick Patterson hurt and Samuel Dalembert a free agent, Morris spent much of his limited time in camp playing power forward. With few practices — and none until next week — and the short preseason, the Rockets sent Morris to the Vipers on Tuesday to get him the work he was not getting in the NBA.

“I think it will help him,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “It’s tough. We play so many games. If he’s not going to play, practice time is limited. I think it’s an opportunity for him to work on his ball-handling skills, playing three, rebounding — stuff we need him to do.”

In the season opener, Morris played four minutes, missed his two shots and said he got nothing out of the experience. He played mop-up minutes in the routs of San Antonio and Memphis. McHale said there was “no question” Morris, 22, would have already had more time working at small forward if the Rockets had a full training camp with their full roster. Because that is the plan, Tony Dutt, Morris’ agent, said they are OK with the move.

“I think we’re fine based on that,” Dutt said. “They’re exactly on cue with what we were hoping. It’s not a demotion. It’s more an opportunity to get minutes right away. There was an abbreviated camp. He will be able to go there and play and then come back and play, hopefully.

“As long as we’re on the same page and it is for the benefit of the player to go down, we would be more open to it than we would normally be. They’ve got a pretty good history of doing it. They utilize that minor league system better.”

When the Rockets became the first NBA team to take over the basketball operations side of its affiliated D-League team, the plan was to use the Vipers to train young players under their direction, with control not only in playing time but the system and roles of players sent there.

“You go from a place where you’re doing everything you can in practice and individual workouts, but until you apply it in a game setting, you can’t make it a part of your development,” said Gersson Rosas, the Rockets’ vice president of player personnel and Rio Grande Valley general manager. “That’s how it helped Patrick. He got consistent minutes, got his confidence up, and got his feel and rhythm back.

“The minutes in games to apply what you’ve learned is the difference between developing and not. There’s nothing like a game situation. We don’t think it’s a demotion. We’re very aggressive in investing in the D-League and hiring coaches and providing resources. Guys get better in the D-League.”

Patterson excelled, averaging 18.3 points and 10.3 rebounds while making 56.5 percent of his shots. Like Morris, he was the 14th pick of the draft and had similar college experience. And he did not want to be there.

“For me, the experience was good,” Patterson said. “I started off just like everybody else. You get drafted. You feel a little bit frustrated, a little mad when you first go down there. You have to go down there with a positive attitude and work your butt off every day to try to get back to the NBA level. It prepared me and got me more NBA ready. At the end, I saw it as a blessing.”